Kuzguncuk is a neighborhood in the Üsküdar district in Istanbul, Turkey. (Shutterstock Photo)
Its famed fish restaurant, Ismet Baba, protrudes out over the glowing, turquoise waves of the Bosporus, facing the pier of Ortaköy, with its pearly, ornate mosque reflecting the crests of the swirling surface of the intercontinental waters that divide Istanbul. It is said that poets, musicians, cineastes, artists and architects would flock to the traditional seafood restaurant, as the establishment seems to hover over the shoreline like a magic carpet.
Kuzguncuk hosts a homely spread of tales, fables and stories. Its apartments and streets speak for its people, who merely wander and take their part in the grand play of the quarter as it dances its choreography of guests and hosts. The place name translates from Turkish to “little raven,” and is rumored to originate from the Ottoman-era fountain that still stands in the tea garden across from the wooden entrance to Ismet Baba.
Under the sprawling limbs of a tall plane tree, the kind of which grace the squares and playgrounds of districts across the Anatolian Bosporus shorefronts, thirsty locals sit and talk in the shadow of their centuries of presence, demanding a singular respect for nature, a truth that elders say is tastable in the tea when drunk about their falling leaves. The clink of glasses follows the dissolution of sugar cubes as impromptu conversation strikes.
In his bathrobe and slippers, the old, grisly versifier Can Yücel would come down from an alley up on a nearby hill that now bears his name. He would buy a slice of grilled fish, and slake his thirst in front of a keen audience of lifelong chums and fawning acquaintances before clearing his Bosporus-wide throat to air what strings of words had lately surfaced in his mind, like fishing for a catch out of the cool strait whose spirit he embraced as his muse.
And nowadays, younger generations of his inspired listeners come for the mere echoes of his literary humanity. Yücel is not the only luminary to grace the village airs of Kuzguncuk, as the waterfront quarter was also home to artists like Füsun Onur, who would summer amid its forests and hills. Its ferry station was once home to a popular movie house, where flashes of silvery images would display black-and-white classics from the golden age of cinema.
On a single corner in Kuzguncuk, at the end of its main drag on Icadiye Avenue toward the Bosporus, which spills out along the busy Paşa Limanı thoroughfare, there is a synagogue, Bet Yaakov, an Armenian church, Surp Krikor Lusavorç, and a Greek church, Ayios Yeorgios. The intimate proximity of the three minorities has sparked the imaginations of Turkish residents and foreign travelers alike.
There is a saying in Kuzguncuk that evokes its old multicultural communalism. It went: “After an Armenian dinner, meet a Greek woman in a Jewish home.” The time-honored adage is rife with metaphors that speak to the mixture of peoples, not only side by side, but within each individual. It could very well be that the Greek woman cooked an Armenian dinner, and was also Jewish, or part of a Jewish family.
The saga of intermarriage among Ottoman-era minorities and their remembrance of their respective cultural distinctions in modern Turkey has been chronicled by Turkish writer Buket Uzuner in her 1997 novel, translated into English as “Mediterranean Waltz.” The unique pluralist heritage of the neighborhood has become the subject of scholarly inquiry, among them Amy Mills, in her 2010 book, “Streets of Memory.”
Mills won the 2011 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award for her work, which was subtitled, “Landscape, Tolerance, and National Identity in Istanbul.” It was the urbanist Jane Jacobs who said that cities are not buildings, but communities. And no one merged those ideas as inspiringly as architect Cengiz Bektaş, who almost single-handedly revived Kuzguncuk’s uniquely exquisite apartment facades into the fantasy it is today.
And walking uphill past the increasingly numerous crop of cafes, there is a particularly stylish bookstore housed within a flatiron-style building designed by the Balyan Brothers, whose architectural genius is responsible for such 19th century gems as Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul. In between the sweet shops and traditional bakeries, daily makers of börek and chefs of Turkish cuisine’s finest dishes, Kuzguncuk is a trove of endless, and fascinating secrets.
Before the soft boundaries of Kuzguncuk change hands with the forested highlands of Fethipaşa Plantation and the environs of the greater municipality of Üsküdar, there is another Greek church, a magnificent edifice called the Iglesia de San Pantaleon. The site evidences the power and wealth of Kuzguncuk’s Greek Christian community. Its stained glass and exterior of sculptures and gardens appear to be impeccably preserved behind a high, white gate.
On a grassy knoll not far, there is a Jewish cemetery which proves just how important Kuzguncuk was for Jews, not only within the Ottoman Empire but also for their related communities in Eastern Europe. There are historians who have written that Kuzguncuk was a stopover point for pilgrims from the Russian Empire on their way to Jerusalem. They sailed down the Bosporus and enjoyed company with their fellow coreligionists in Kuzguncuk.
The aroma of the past lingers in Kuzguncuk like a light, festive spring, refreshing the present moment with a rose-tinted longing for a past that while seemingly idyllic in retrospect may have been less appetizing than the chorus of next-wave espresso bars and trendy eateries that have since lined the neighborhood’s bustling avenue. Yet, despite a whorl of new changes, the quarter maintains the cozy, sheltered ambiance of home. It is a world unto itself, a quaint and quiet Bosporus village in the middle of Istanbul.